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OK. I rest my case.
... And now I'll go and purchase PrPro CS5.5, so I can export some MPEG-1 and SWF files of some footage I just recorded with my Canon XH G1S camcorder.
However, I also wanted to add some selectable extra language tracks and selectable subtitles and an index for my original HDV H.264 High Profile camcorder movie, but since that's not really the kind of video editing and storage that Premiere Pro is intended for, I guess I'll have to download Handbrake for free instead... 
Please, please... Don't keep making uo allsorts of ad hoc excuses on behalf of Adobe. Their incredible amount of silence regarding the decision not to support WebM after all is just embarrassing and pathetic - or simply arrogant if you prefer that word.
Adobe does not support ANY of the most popular community open standards - not even FLAC! (well, you can install an unofficial plugin, I believe)
Not even the most impressive video codec before H.264, Dirac/Schroedinger (which was made royalty free as a protest against MPEG-LA's lucrative monopoly), has ever been supported by Adobe although it was developed by the BBC... Well documented? Yes. Profitable? No.
More than anything else this confirms what this is all about for Adobe: Making hefty license profits and doing whatever they can to limit the use of patent/license free standards regardless of technical quality or public demand (I'm sure they've been asked about FLAC and MKV support thousands of times already).
Adobe is defending commercial industry standards. MKV files are almost without exception only containing H.264 video and either AAC, Vorbis or AC3 audio and nothing else - and never some of the 'obscure' formats you keep talking about. That is exactly the same as MP4 and M4V which are also slightly content-flexible containers. However, Adobe and their industrial hardware and software partners behind MPEG-LA does not make any money on MKV like they do on their own industry standard formats. MPEG-LA is making so much money on license fees that there ought to be a law against it. 
I just created a fully featured MKV file for presentation purposes complete with indexes, different subtitles and audio tracks last week. It plays fluently, and its features are fully supported and working, when I play the file on FREE media players. It's fun, and it's very useful.
And if you put an MKV file on a USB stick and plug it into any modern Samsung or LG television, it will start playing without any problems, and you can even make use of the additional tracks.
... I wonder just how complicated it can be to add MKV support to Premiere Pro or any other 'high end' software or hardware product?
And then again: You could even throw an editable lossless video format into your MKV container... Something you would NOT be able to do with any other container format that Adobe supports.
Message was edited by: EuroSiti
Bill Hunt wrote:
As for WebM, there was a reference to Adobe's support for it, but I have not had luck finding the link. That is the trouble with an older-guy's memory. I can still recall having read of something, but then, tracking it back down is beyond me. The gray-matter is hardening, and it seems that there is nothing that I can do about that.
Here is the link to the 'accidental' promise to support the Internet's supposedly 100% free video st...... And you're not really old until you're past 80, Bill.
Bill Hunt wrote:
... However, I do cringe, when a corporation, such as Sony, locks up everything, and charges tons of $ for anyone to do, say BD through a replicator. Still, they won the war, and "to the victor, go the spoils," so I should not be too surprised.
Well. That's my problem with MPEG-LA. It's basically a far too powerful conglomerate of 'stake'holders (Apple, Sony, Microsoft etc.). They have already been succesful at abusing the ISO standardization system to practically force national governments and others away from open standards saying that open standards (FLAC, Matroska etc.) aren't "sufficiently documented". However, Microsoft were succesful in getting an ISO approval of their far from well-documented alternate Open Document format. Everyone suspected corruption for a very good reason.
MPEG-LA has turned the MPEG4 ISO standards into a money machine. Any piece of hardware or software that makes use of their codec is forced to pay a substantial and endless amount of money. Patents in the IT industry as well as in the health industry are often abused far beyond all reason, but of course that is more of a legislative problem.
However, I have noticed that it looks like Apple has hired some Swedish company to steal the Matroska EBML open standard and turn it into a closed Steve Jobs standard for iTunes with all the well-known features from the Matroska container (I will see if I can find the web site again). But of course, Apple as well as Microsoft has always believed in their exclusive right to steal from others.
... But I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe quickly starts supporting Apple's new format regardless of user requests. They have just revealed just how scared they are of Apple. 
The big boys are still allowed to dictate IT legislation in most countries due to a complete lack of IT knowledge among politicians and other decisionmakers. The fact that Microsoft and Apple have been succesful in making their own closed and inferior AIFF and WAVE formats the official storage formats for many national archives at the expense of FLAC is alarming to say the least. No IT-skilled archivists understand why FLAC still hasn't become an official audio storage standard.
Archives as well as other institutions working with storage media solutions use Adobe products.
I am sure that Adobe is already aware of that (because occasionally they send their "hired goons" (yes, believe it or not - Adobe can afford that even these days!) out to check if the archives have paid their Adobe license fees (which they had in the episode I am referring to).
These days, external hard drives is THE way to store video and audio content. Support on standalone players isn't something that matters. Storage on DVDs and similar size-limited media isn't recommended either. What matters is that you can store your content in the optimal lossless or near lossless format. FLAC is such a format and it has been so for over 10 years. Adobe is of course aware of that.
Adobe also knows that people would use some of these formats, if the option was available. The fact that WebM support was dropped still indicates that whichever formats Adobe decides to support has nothing to do with public demand. It has much more to do with what their commercial partners want them to support. Public demand is secondary at best if it matters at all. That is why we will NOT see WebM support in any Adobe products. However, we will see the HTML5 features that Apple and other commerical partners like and can make a profit from.
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